e people, and only
element of discord among the States, extirpated by the gradual removal
of slavery and negroism, we would bound forward in a new and wonderful
career of power and prosperity. Our noble vessel of state, the great
Republic, freighted with the hopes of humanity, and the liberties of our
country and of mankind, still bearing aloft the flag of our mighty
Union, indissoluble by domestic traitors or conspiring oligarchs, will,
under Divine guidance, pass over the troubled waters, reassuring a
desponding world, as she glides into the blessed haven of safety and
repose. All the miracles of our past career would be eclipsed by the
glories of the future. We might then laugh to scorn the impotent malice
of foreign foes. Without force or fraud, without sceptre or bayonet, our
moral influence and example, for their own good, and by their own free
choice, would control the institutions and destiny of nations. The wise
men of the East may then journey westward again, to see the rising star
of a regenerated humanity, the fall of thrones and dynasties, the
lifting up of the downtrodden masses, and the political redemption of
our race, not by a new dispensation, but by the fulfilment thus of the
glorious prophecies and blessed promises of Holy Writ. And can we not
lift ourselves into that serene atmosphere of love of country and of our
race, above all selfish schemes or mere party devices, and contemplate
the grandeur of these results, if now, _now_, NOW we will only do our
duty? Now, indeed, is the 'accepted time,' now is the day of the
'salvation' of our country. And now, as in former days of trouble, let
us remember the mighty dead, as, when living, silencing the voice of
treason, and calming the tempest of revolution, he uttered those
electric words: 'UNION AND LIBERTY, NOW AND FOREVER, ONE AND
INSEPARABLE!'

If we could rise to the height of prophetic vision, behold the
procession of coming events, and, unrolling the scroll of advancing
years and centuries, contemplate our Union securing by its example the
rights and liberties of man, would we not welcome any sacrifice, even
death itself, if we could thus aid in accomplishing results so god-like
and sublime? But, whether in gloom or glory, chastened for national sins
or rewarded for good deeds, let us realize the _great truth_, that the
Almighty directs nations as well as planets in their course, governs the
moral as well as the material world, never abdicating for